Battle of brains: 112 teams vie for top spot at city’s heritage quiz

Kolkata: City quizzers were in for an invigorating session at the 56th Neil O'Brien's DI Open Quiz 2026 at the Dalhousie Institute on Saturday.The second oldest quiz in the country held in the memory of legendary quiz master Neil O'Brien saw a mind boggling 112 teams registering for the written preliminary round, breaking last year's record of 108 teams.The written prelims round had 30 questions which most found easy enough to tackle.The eight teams which made it to the finals of the heritage quiz to compete for the coveted Errol Cowper Trophy were Smash & Grab, Sarbomongala Sporting Club, Quiz Lovers of Kolkata, Smells Like Team Spirit, Inmanaics, Cornered Tigers, DI (A) and What's In A Name.Quiz masters Shouvik Guha and Andrew Scolt took turns to steer the eight teams through six rounds of interesting questions. Scolt also conducted a special Derek's Round in true Derek O'Brien style.After the seven rounds, Smells Like Team Spirit emerged as clear winners with Inmaniacs in second place and What's In A Name coming third.Smells Like Team Spirit comprising young professionals Saswata Acharya, Souptik Das, Aditya Narayan Sen and Arunoday Chaudhuri were thrilled with their win. "The questions were excellent and well-researched," smiled Saswata. The winning trophy was given by DI president Syed Hanan Ali. The team from The Heritage School won a scholarship for being the top scorers among the school teams.Ian Zachariah and Brian Cecil who have quizzed together on the same team for 30 years since 1970 were inducted into Neil O'Brien's Quizzing Hall of Fame 2024. Both sent video messages as they could not be present at the event."It's a privilege to conduct the DI Open Quiz once again and we are honoured to carry on Neil O'Brien's legacy, said Shouvik Guha. "We were overwhelmed by the response we got despite it being held bang in the middle of the summer holidays," said Andrew Scolt. "What was so heartening was so many school teams took part and correctly answered whatever questions the seniors could not. They even dominated the audience questions," he exclaimed.Navin Jayakumar, last year's Hall of Fame inductee who had specially flown down to attend the quiz said, "Coming to Kolkata is like coming home and it is sheer joy for me to recall all those memories of quizzing here."